The days after the confession blurred into a strange, luminous haze. I had told Leo I loved him. I had screamed it while he made me come, my voice echoing off the bare brick walls, and he had said it back. The words still felt new on my tongue, like a language I was only beginning to learn. I love you. I love you. I love you. I said them in the mirror while brushing my teeth. I whispered them against his skin in the dark hours before dawn. I typed them into my phone and deleted them, typed them again, sent them, and felt my heart stutter every time his reply appeared. I love you too.

But love, it turned out, did not mean the training stopped. Love meant the training deepened. Love meant that every command was now layered with something that made it both more tender and more terrifying. He was not just training my body to surrender. He was training my heart to trust. And trust, I was learning, was far more demanding than obedience.